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“Nineteen-year-old Bill Shunn was a man on a mission—a Mormon mission, that is, trolling for converts door-to-door a thousand miles from home. A seventh-generation Mormon, steeped since birth in the gospel according to Joseph Smith, Shunn had to place his life and writing career on hold in order to fulfill his two-year mission, and faced challenges along the way that led to the ultimate confrontation with both his spiritual and secular authorities. Now, with hard-won wisdom and compassion for his younger self, Shunn recounts the harrowing pilgrimage—rife with good intentions, noble ideals, and deep-seated insecurities—that pushed him to places stranger than any fiction. That story is ‘The Accidental Terrorist’.

Bill Shunn is a graduate from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City with a degree in computer science. Soon thereafter he began finding success as a science fiction writer. His short fiction has appeared in Salon, Storyteller, Bloodstone Review, Newtown Literary, Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Science Fiction Age, Realms of Fantasy, Electric Velocipede, and various anthologies, including year’s-best collections. His work has been nominated for the Hugo Award and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, and twice for the Nebula Award.”

Join us this Sunday as David Pacheco speaks with William Shunn about “The Accidental Terrorist”

Atheists Talk is proud to welcome Baba Brinkman to the show this Sunday, November 1st, 2015. We will be speaking with Baba about his newest music album, The Rap Guide to Religion. From his website:

Why do most humans believe in a higher power? What are those beliefs good for? And once they are gone, what can replace them? Fresh from a 5-star run at the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and a six month off-Broadway run, this groundbreaking new work explores the various ways and means by which religion evolves in our species, leaving audiences with a new appreciation of religion, and its critics. It’s time to eff with the ineffable.

Baba Brinkman is a Canadian rap artist, writer and actor. He blends his love of the arts and academia to produce intelligent criticisms of religious dogma and celebrations of science.

Baba Brinkman earned a Master of Arts in Medieval and Renaissance English Literature and he studied human evolution and primatology with the orangutan researcher Biruté Galdikas. His thesis compared modern Hip hop freestyle battling with The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.

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Carl Sagan was an accomplished astronomer and cosmologist, and is well-known and loved for his work as a science popularizer and communicator. He contributed to the body of work that explains the greenhouse effect and its role in the temperature of Venus. He helped lend credibility to the search for extraterrestrial life, and produced work with CETI – Communication with Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

Dr. Sagan was the presenter and co-writer of the inspirational television series, Cosmos. He was a skeptic and educator of critical thinking, and his 1995 book The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark has helped laypeople to gain a greater understanding of the scientific method and rational inquiry.

November 14th is Carl Sagan Day and to celebrate we’ll discuss Carl Sagan’s contributions and achievements. Travis Peterson is an organizer for the Minnesota Skeptics and a fan of Carl Sagan’s works and legacy. Join us on Sunday to talk about space, critical thought, Cosmos, Contact and “billions and billions” of other topics (okay, not quite that many).

In the United States many citizens have access to regulated and safe healthcare (though expensive!). Unfortunately, more and more Americans are finding their access to vital and available services limited by the religious beliefs of their providers. We may ostensibly live in a secular society, but we’re finding that our healthcare system is become less and less so. From AtheistVoter.org:

Today, nearly 1 in 6 Americans is treated by a health care provider who is affiliated with more than 645 Catholic hospitals in the United States, according to the Catholic Health Association of the United States. All Catholic health care providers are encouraged to abide by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Ethical and Religious Directives, which affects the types and direction of treatment that men and women receive for everything from birth control to vasectomies to cancer to end-of-life care.

American Atheists is working to secure a legal right for patients to know what limits are being placed on us by our providers. By introducing the Model Patient’s Right to Know Act, they are hoping to create an environment in which we might be able to better understand our options when we’re choosing healthcare. From the American Atheist press release of the proposed legislation:

The proposed legislation would require health care providers to simply provide a list of services they will not perform for religious reason to patients, potential patients, health insurers, and state and federal grant or subsidy programs. The health care providers and insurance issues would them be requied to make that information available online for potential patients.

Join us this Sunday as we speak with Amanda Knief, National Legal and Public Policy director of American Atheists and author of the Model Patient’s Right to Know Act.

The road from being a devoted believer to becoming atheist can be a hard one. It is even harder for those who have devoted their lives to sharing those beliefs with others. In her new book, From Apostle to Apostate: The Story of the Clergy Project, Catherine Dunphy talks about the special challenges facing nonbelievers whose former faith led them to the priesthood. Along the way, she also tells her own story, from former seminarian to executive director of an organization helping people like her.

This Sunday, Dunphy joins us to talk about her book and the work of the Clergy Project.

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Skepticon grew from a student event on campus to the largest atheist and skeptic conference in the U.S. in just a few short years. Co-founder Lauren Lane and her team of volunteers built Skepticon into an atheist Mecca, if you will. With talks, workshops, vendors, and even a Dino Prom, it has become an unprecedented annual gathering of heathens from all over the country and beyond. The free registration and central location don’t hurt either.

This Sunday, we’ll talk with Lauren about seeing her baby grow up and what it takes to keep an event this size functioning, fun, and free.

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Skepticon grew from a student event on campus to the largest atheist and skeptic conference in the U.S. in just a few short years. Co-founder Lauren Lane and her team of volunteers built Skepticon into an atheist Mecca, if you will. With talks, workshops, vendors, and even a Dino Prom, it has become an unprecedented annual gathering of heathens from all over the country and beyond. The free registration and central location don’t hurt either.

This Sunday, we’ll talk with Lauren about seeing her baby grow up and what it takes to keep an event this size functioning, fun, and free.

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There is a much-bandied-about figure in the reporting of Global Climate Change: 97% of climate scientists agree that the science shows that the climate is warming and that the increase in global mean temperatures is due to human activity. This is a strong consensus, and it is based on readings that come from many sources. The temperatures of the ocean and air and the raising of the sea levels all indicate that the level of carbon dioxide and methane are acting as we would expect them to under anthropogenic climate change models. They are wreaking havoc on the natural world and threaten our food supplies and habitable environments. The ice caps at our poles are melting, and the Alps are shedding their glaciers. As a species, we are letting inaction on climate doom us, and we need to make some political decisions as to what we are going to do. Are we going to mitigate the effects of climate change? Are we going to adapt?

Dr. John Abraham is our guest for this show. Abraham is a research professor in thermal sciences at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. He is a member of the Climate Science Rapid Response Team and has been our guest in shows past. Dr. Greg Laden will conduct the interview.

Listen to AM 950 KTNF this Sunday at 9 a.m. Central to hear Atheists Talk, produced by Minnesota Atheists. Stream live online. Call in to the studio at 952-946-6205, or send an e-mail to [email protected] during the live show. If you miss the live show, listen to the podcast later.

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This week, the Center for Medical Progress has released its fifth video claiming to show that Planned Parenthood is illegally selling aborted fetuses for medical research. This video, like each video before it, has been shown to be deceptively edited to hide Planned Parenthood’s actual practices–allowing abortion patients in a small number of states to donate tissue as a service to those patients. In response to the deceptive video, Senate Republicans attempted to defund Planned Parenthood and failed. In the meantime, the Center for Medical Progress is being investigated for illegal practices of their own.

This Sunday, Amanda Marcotte, writer and host of the RH Reality Cast, will return to Atheists Talk to fill us in on these videos and place them in the context of the current political assault on reproductive rights.

Listen to AM 950 KTNF this Sunday at 9 a.m. Central to hear Atheists Talk, produced by Minnesota Atheists. Stream live online. Call in to the studio at 952-946-6205, or send an e-mail to [email protected] during the live show. If you miss the live show, listen to the podcast later.

On June 26, 2015, the United States Supreme Court, in a historic vote, moved our nation one step closer to finding equality under the law by legalizing same sex marriage nationally. There are many in the religious right, however, unwilling to allow their fellow citizens participate fully in society. Unfortunately, in far too many cases, those in the religious right are also in positions of power, or have the authority to exercise control over the freedoms of their fellow Americans.

On this episode, we welcome Annie Laurie Gaylor, cofounder of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, editor for Freethought Today, the nation’s only freethought newspaper. In addition to her editorial and leadership roles within the FFRF, Annie also has found time to author the books Woe to Women: The Bible Tells Me So,Betrayal of Trust: Clergy Abuse of Children, and Women Without Superstition: No Gods – No Masters. Annie is here to discuss, and help us understand what obligations are there for people in the religious right have when it comes to executing the duties government. We’ll also discuss areas of continued, state-sanctioned discrimination where people across the entire LGBTQIAA spectrum still face hurdles on a daily basis.

We welcome Annie Laurie Gaylor to the show to bring her expertise and experience on legal issues concerning this new tactic to punch a hole in the wall between church and state.

Listen to AM 950 KTNF this Sunday at 9 a.m. Central to hear Atheists Talk, produced by Minnesota Atheists. Stream live online. Call in to the studio at 952-946-6205, or send an e-mail to [email protected] during the live show. If you miss the live show, listen to the podcast later.